1 watt AM transmitter, available assembled

It's the item our visitors most search for and now it can be yours!6v6 Electronics, home of Vintage Components and a wide variety of radio topics, components and kits, has done it.6v6 Electronics now offers the "Mosquito" a ready built, ready to runone watt AM transmitter for the US market.Vintage Components first entered the low power radio scene with an innovative Part 15 compliant transmitter called the "Gizmo."
While no longer available, this first unit served as a clever and robust effort, prologue to an exciting selection of innovative low power transmitters.
The Gizmo gave way to the "Metzo" (now also discontinued) and finally the "Spitfire" a truly remarkable Part 15 compliant unit.
We still have the Gizmo we ordered from Vintage Components back in our SCWIS days and our Gizmo works as well today as it did 16 years ago - a testament to the quality you can count on from 6v6 Electronics.
The "Mosquito" offers an amazing array of features and you can read about those on the Mosquito US and Mosquito EU product pages.
Even better, your faithful editor was able to get an email interview with 6v6 Electronics for an in depth look at some of the insider secrets behind this exciting product:

Q. Why did you decide to offer the Mosquito?

The Mosquito 1 Watt AM Transmitter was designed to cater to

the new 1 Watt Low Power AM standards (MW) being introduced
worldwide, (for example in Scandinavia and the Netherlands).

the rules in Europe & Scandinavia are different (as are
the rules for MW & SW)

antenna choice is largely governed by individual users
circumstances (live in flat, house with garden, open land etc
etc)

as an example some Scandinavian countries have no limit to
antenna size so theoretically you could use a half wave 110
meter long wire with matching balun (space permitting)

far more likely is base loaded verticals with suitable loading
coils

We do however require the antenna to

present a 50 Ohm load and ideally be tuned/matched to the
frequency of choice

a suitable ground plan or counterpoise (depends on antenna
selection)

suggest the transmitter connected to Earth

Q. Was there a technical reason you chose 1000 - 1710 kHZ or is
that the typical band range for an EU MW XMTR?

The reasons are

with short antenna the higher the MW operation frequency the
more efficient the antenna will be

to minimize wasted power in the transmitter operate in class E
mode where possible

and don't forget the unit will also run SW Top band 160M as
well

in fact the unit will cover 450khz to 1000khz working in
class C!

Q. How does the Mosquito differ from the Spitfire? e.g., the
Spitfire includes an antenna matching section but there's no
mention of that for the Mosquito, the Mosquito doesn't seem to
have the same audio management functions, etc.

The Spitfire is designed to "Run out the box" using 3 Meter
antenna... Requires virtually no technical Knowledge...

With the Mosquito you will need the some technical skills to
fabricate a suitable antenna

The Netherlands: for use in the Netherlands for a “laagvermogen AM” (LPAM) license granted by Agentschap Telecom.

Scandinavia: Sweden, Norway, Denmark & Finland

Worldwide subject to any country specific regulations

Wow! You won't want to swat this Mosquito. If you'd like to join the experimenters who enjoy the relatively lax enforcement in the AM band and try your hand a low power radio the easy way, check out the "Mosquito" at 6v6 Electronics.

3 comments:

Just got the mosquito as a gift..is there any other way to make a simpler antenna as the ones mentioned?..I am very much a.beginner at this hobby..would a simple piece of wire work just like their regular Am transmitter?do not want to break this transmitter..thanks for your time! manichsp@att.net

Thank you very much for your comments. The challenge with a simple short wire antenna is that this kind of antenna can damage the transmitter. This is because the transmitter works best with a 50 Ohm load on the antenna terminal. A simple wire antenna would need to be about 160 feet long to provide a 50 Ohm load at 1500 Khz.

That's why we use loading coils or dummy loads.

A dummy load is just a 50 ohm load with an antenna connector. You be able to pick up our transmitter if you are near by but there won't be any significant range. you can find dummy loads on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2y0Y81b

If you grabbed a piece of plastic pipe or other non-conductive coil form like a big glass jar that was around 3" in diameter and 4" long and wrapped about 120 turns of wire, or about 100 linear feet of any wire, around that coil form you'd be close to what you need in the high end (1400 KHz - 1700 Khz). Connect one end of the coil to the transmitter and the other to a 10 to 20 foot wire antenna.

It's not that hard and if your transmitter has a good ground connection you'll get great range.